A wide stone porch, roofed with reddish tile, spans the front of the old house, its supports grown over with flowering vines. Shallow steps lead down to the circular carriageway and the green lawns. Wicker chairs with floral chintz cushions are set here and there. A door leads into the house.

Chantal has pulled a chair up to the rail of the porch and is leaning over it, gazing out toward the woods.

Marcelin walks along the carriageway rather slowly. His chin is not at its normal angle, and he's wearing drab brown.

Chantal catches movement out of the corner of her eye, and glances over. The next moment her face lights up. "Marcelin!"

Marcelin looks up when he hears his name, and half-smiles. "Chantoinette."

Chantal leans perilously further out over the railing. "I wasn't expecting you!" She studies him for a minute, and sobers a little. "Are you all right?"

Marcelin shrugs slightly as he nears the railing. "A bit tired. I've been ill; I needed to get away from Paris for a while." He gestures vaguely with one hand. "Rest. Recuperate. You know."

Chantal straightens a bit, frowning now. "You have? Why didn't you write me? Here, come up here, sit down."

Marcelin climbs the steps. As he sits down, he coughs a bit. "I didn't want you to worry. What could you have done?"

Chantal gets that stubborn set to her chin, but all she says is, "Do you want tea?"

Marcelin recognizes the family stubborn streak and smiles. "Tea would be lovely."

Chantal nods firmly and jumps up, ducking inside to find somebody to charge with the errand. After a minute she reemerges triumphantly. "In a minute." She comes over to lean on the back of his chair and put her arms around him. "I missed you."

Marcelin puts his hands over hers. "And I you. How has your life been since I saw you last?"

Chantal sighs faintly. "Same as always."

Marcelin nods. "Humdrum or combat. I recall."

Chantal snickers lightly in his ear. "Or humdrum combat." She mimics: "'Julie, sit up straight.' 'I am sitting up straight.' 'Don't contradict'. Yawn."

Marcelin chuckles sympathetically. "Are you a fine lady yet?"

Chantal laughs. "Can't you tell?" she teases.

Marcelin twists in his chair to look at her appraisingly. "I think you are, but I am sure Maman does not."

Chantal reddens at that, glancing down. "No," she agrees.

Marcelin picks up her hand from his chest and kisses it. "Don't fret over Maman. You will be as fine a woman as any, whether or not you act like an aristocrat."

Chantal rocks a little on her toes, touched, though she sighs. "I hope so."

Marcelin says firmly, "I know so."

Chantal squeezes his hand. After a moment she says, "What have you been doing?" As though she doesn't know.

Marcelin coughs again, turning his head away from her. "Officially? Studying. With the rest of my time, I've been talking with my friends. We talk quite a bit."

Chantal half grins. "I expect you do." She tousles his fair hair playfully. "Talk and talk and talk. Boys do nothing but talk..."

Marcelin smiles back at her. "Yes. We certainly do talk. Some of them drink, too."

"Oooh," Chantal mocks. "Shocking. Which ones?"

Marcelin muses. "All of them, I should think."

Chantal giggles. "Shockinger and shockinger." She moves to drop down in the chair next to him again. "And... what are you studying?"

Marcelin considers this. "The normal. History, history, law, law, Latin, and mathematics."

Chantal makes a face. "Ooooh, lucky Marcelin. --Will you teach me Latin?"

Marcelin wrinkles his nose at her. "I will teach you when I know how to say more than things like, 'I think, therefore I am,' and 'That is a very nice house, M. Centurion.' You know I enjoy history and law. You ought to study them. They would give you more of an understanding of the country and its
shoddy government."

Chantal says matter-of-factly, "How much of an understanding do I need?"

Marcelin utters his favorite phrase, "Under the Republic," and adds less familiar words, "women will stand as tall and strong as men in all things."

Chantal smiles, tilting her head at him. "I like to hear you talk."

Marcelin laughs quietly. "I seem to inspire that in people."

Chantal's pensive smile metamorphoses into a pixyish grin. "Really? Who?" You can almost hear the chant 'Marcelin's got a girlfriend' already.

Marcelin answers without elaboration, "Why, my friends, of course. I like to hear them talk as well."

Chantal pulls a face at him. "That's not an answer."

Marcelin grins back. "It's the truth, at least. You know who I mean. You've read my letters. There's no one new right now."

Chantal settles back in her chair with a small hmph and a rustle of taffeta. "You should bring them to visit." Her eyes are sparkling again.

"Ha! I'm sure Maman would love that." He nudges her in the side with his elbow. "Besides, I think Combeferre has been rather busy of late."

Chantal sputters a bit. "I wasn't, I don't, you... --Besides, she'd be glad. Somebody whose head she can throw Julie at."

Marcelin nods. "I know what you were saying. I don't think she'd relish the company of more than one of my compatriots. Combeferre, she might even like, but not most of the rest."

Chantal wrinkles her nose. "You'd be surprised. You haven't seen what she has been throwing Julie at."

Marcelin raises an eyebrow. "How old is he?"

"Forty," Chantal says dourly.

Marcelin gapes. "Perhaps I should bring them all so that they can abduct her and save her from his palsied gropings."

Chantal looks wise. "Told you." She resettles in her chair, tucking her feet under the seat. "It wouldn't be so bad, but he's bald and he makes rude jokes and I wouldn't wish him on Julie even if she is a snot."

Marcelin shakes his head. "I suppose he's rich."

Chantal shrugs. "I suppose. It didn't come up. Or at least not at dinner, and I wouldn't stay afterward."

Marcelin nods. "Which of my Amis do you think Julie would appreciate?"

Chantal chuckles without much humor. "I don't think she's particular by this time."

Marcelin considers this. "Maman would throw out Bahorel the instant he stepped onto the porch, and she would not think that Feuilly was an appropriate match."

Chantal shakes a dark curl out of her eyes. "Which one is he again?"

"He actually works for a living. How inappropriate."

Chantal snickers a bit. "Horrors."

Marcelin frowns. "There are others, but I don't know most of them well enough to entrust my dear soeur to their tender mercies. I hate to leave her with a man twice her age."

"Well," says Chantal matter-of-factly, "she says if she has to, she'll poison him."

Even Marcelin has no immediate answer to this. "Does she. That's brave of her."

Chantal rubs her nose. "Well, you know Julie. She says she will. But she'd probably try to do it with chamomile. --Anyway. I still think you should bring them to visit, just so we can all watch Maman and Papa having to be polite."

Marcelin laughs. "Chamomile? What a horrid way to go. You could come and visit me, you know, if you really want to see Combeferre. It'd be better not to stir up this house. I'm not sure that they would try to be all that polite."

Chantal, gratifyingly, blushes again. "You're making fun of me," she complains.

Marcelin nods. "Of course I am."

Chantal puts her tongue out at him in a most unladylike fashion, and yet again shifts in her seat, just about as some lucky maid comes out with his tea.

Marcelin smiles at the maid. "Hello, Babette."

Babette blinks, then brightens, bobbing a curtsey. "Welcome home, m'sieur." She hands him the cup and saucer ceremoniously.

Marcelin takes it with a nod. "Thank you."

Chantal grins quietly to herself.

The maid curtseys again, and skitters off into the house again.

Marcelin asks mildly, "Why do you smile so?"

Chantal rejoins equally mildly, "Nothing." She tucks a curl back behind her ear.

"Mm-hmm. I'm sure. You often smile impishly over nothing."

"Impishly?" says Chantal, all innocence.

Marcelin nods. "Impishly."

Chantal gives in. "She likes you, you know."

Marcelin raises an eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

Chantal rolls her eyes at the idiocy of boys. "It's perfectly obvious."

Marcelin blinks calmly. "Perhaps to you. Do you think it should matter to me if she likes me?"

Chantal sighs gustily. "Probably not..."

Marcelin continues unruffled, "Then I shouldn't bother to notice if she does."

Chantal leans back in her chair with a longsuffering air. "You're exasperating."

Marcelin shrugs. "Perhaps it runs in the family."

Chantal shoots back, "Double exasperating."

"And yet you continue to want me in your company."

Chantal is starting to grin. "Triple exasperating."

Marcelin asks soberly, "How long will you go on? I'd like to learn the word for the 13th degree of exasperating."

Chantal retorts, "Thirteenthly exasperating!" and dissolves into giggles.

Marcelin laughs with her. "Whyever not?"

Chantal tosses her hair back. "Why not what?"

"I meant that there's no reason the word shouldn't be 'thirteenthly,' even though I've never heard it before now."

Chantal grins. "It's a good word," she agrees.

Marcelin nods. "And you're clever to think of it."

"No," she says. Impishly. "Just exasperated."

Marcelin laughs again. "Of course, how could I have forgotten?"